‘I used to say: if they have to amputate my leg after the game, then that is just the case. You won’t hear from me anymore ‘

About a year ago, in a hotel room of a luxurious training complex on Lanzarote, Judoka Sanne van Dijke (29) experienced the largest physical low point of her career. It is « unreal » how that went, she says looking back.

She doesn’t want to be pathetic about it. And she does not want to come across as if she is covering herself, if this Tuesday is not the way she wants at the Judo world championships in Budapest. « If I lose now, it is myselves, » she says in a conversation prior to the World Cup. « And not so: yes, but I have such a bad back. » Because there it was him: that back.

Around the turn of 2024 she was still so good for it. Van Dijke-Twice European Champion, winner of World Cup medals and Olympic Bronze in 2021-was first on the world ranking. She had just won the prestigious Grand Slam from Tokyo. No guarantee, she says now, but in Paris she had a considerable chance of a second Olympic medal.

Until she got a hernia in January. Initially she recovered, but a few weeks after that it wasn’t right again. She didn’t know what exactly was going on at the time. In April things really went wrong: after a technical training, she was forced to stay in bed for ten days. From Chagrijn, because she should have unsubscribed from the World Cup of ’24, Van Dijke then decided to go to that complex on Lanzarote, to work on her condition. Against better judgment, actually.

Dragging to the pool

Once on Lanzarote it is again ‘escalated’, she says now. In the morning she was cycling. Then it went a lot worse and she had to lie down. « Then was lunch and I wanted to get out of bed. But that didn’t work. » Too much pain. Dinner: Same story. « Then I thought: I’ll take a look tomorrow. » But the next day it also didn’t work: no lunch, no dinner. With only a bottle of water she lay in her room for almost two days. She took help from her girlfriend, who offered to charter the hotel staff. She felt vulnerable, she says. She had initially showered and was not dressed.

Because Van Dijke would fly the next day, something had to happen. « Then I thought: things are going better in the water. I just have to get in that swimming pool. » Lying on the floor, she squeezed herself in her bikini. Then she crawled to the swimming pool, to let herself fall into the water like a whale. With her clothes on she went to sleep, the next day she dragged herself to the airport. « When I got home, my girlfriend said: we won’t do this anymore. »

It turned out that Van Dijkes was the original hernia further ‘out’. It was so serious that it was urgently operated on after returning home. Six weeks before the Games, exactly what she did not want: for recovery there is normally about six to nine months. But she was in so much pain, she couldn’t do anything else.

Yet her surgeon Van Dijke did not immediately write off. « He said: if you have done strength and fitness training with this hernia, even stood on the mat, then you are mentally far away. » If she could wear so much, he thought, then she would have a chance to win ‘Paris’.

Rightly so, it turned out, because Van Dijke miraculously made up the Games. After that operation, after finally the pinched nerve was freed, she immediately felt so much better that she stopped in one fell swoop with the oxycodone (morphine pine stillers) that she had been taking for two months. « The after -effects of the operation were much less bad than that hernia itself. » With the help of her physio and strength trainer, she steamed herself ready for the Games in six weeks.

Just next to a medal

In Paris she even just grabbed a medal: she lost her match for the bronze. In tears she then spoke to the press. Again Van Dijke is full when she thinks about that moment. « It was just … For the first time I was really proud of myself. And I was able to enjoy it too. Normally I am too nervous for that, too stressed, then it will only work afterwards. But then it really had a realization: I am here again. »

No matter how special that moment was: was it actually justified? Has she ever thought about that afterwards? Van Dijke drops a short break. « Haha. Well, good, I had approval from a doctor, let’s put that first. In retrospect it is nice to live. I had now been in a wheelchair, then not. But yes, it turned out that it was justified. »

Another question: should anyone have protected her from her boundless ambition? So that, for example, she had not left for Lanzarote with a heavy hernia? She doesn’t think so. « Maybe we should have had an MRI made before. But because of the morphine I received, I thought: it is going again. Let me continue. »

She did not tell much about that hernia – then and since then. In the meantime it is also behind her, she says. But that took a long time. After the Games, Van Dijke has rehabilitated for months: sparing her back, done neatly exercises.

Since January on the mat again

Only since January she has been on the mat again. It took some getting used to. « The first few months I really had the feeling: how do I do this again? I was very slow. I had to think about everything. Well, you don’t have time for that. Now I am still building a bit again. »

She doesn’t know exactly where she is sporty. She has barely judged tournaments. At the European Championship in April she immediately lost her first round. She found the strong Szofi Özbas that would later become European champions. On the Grand Slam of Tblisi she won silver (she lost to the same Özbas).

Her back plays little in the judo, says Van Dijke. « I don’t think about it during training. Only with some movements. » But pains are exciting. « I can be a bit panicky if I feel something. Back problems are not new, for any Judoka. You ask a lot of your body. » Yet sitting for a long time is ultimately worse and painful than training, she says. « My surgeon is more concerned about the fact that I drive to Papendal every day. »

Mentally the hair has changed. « I have learned that there are limits that I do not want to cross. I used to say: if I can go to the Olympic Games, but they have to amput my leg afterwards, then it is just like that. You won’t hear from me anymore. Sport is fun, it’s my passion. But every day as much pain, that you don’t want to feel like that like that, then I will never be waking up. I stop yesterday. ”

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